#sorry if this sounds weird coming from someone who isnt physically disabled

[clutterbrain]

I love that comic for biking, but I just want to point out one difference between urban cycling and bus riding.

When biking infrastructure is bad, the only people who bike are exceptionally athletic and/or brave. But for people who use bad bus systems, it's not that they're more capable of making the bus work than other people - it's that they have no other options.

When I lived in San Antonio, I realized it would be faster to just spend 40 minutes walking home than it would be to get a 1 hour delayed bus. So I walked, and I never took the bus again after that. It was hot and time-consuming and there weren't always sidewalks, but I could walk in that little dirt path by the road and make it work.

You know who was still left at that bus stop when I gave up? People who can't just decide to walk. If you pay attention, you'll see who's actually waiting at the bus stops: elderly people, people with visible mobility aids, blind people. The actual population that uses America's shittiest public transit is NOT super intense eco-activists or people who just really love the bus and choose to put up with it, it's people who literally have no other option. They cannot drive a car, they can't just walk, they can't even travel by electric scooter or wheelchair because we *don't build or maintain the fucking sidewalks.*

What is left for them but to wait out that 2 hour delay?

People who only take transit may be expecting it but that doesn't mean it doesn't fuck them over. How can you keep a job or make an appointment if it's impossible to predict whether you'll be 2 hours late or not? Disabled people have shit to do too!!!!

Better buses. Every 15 minutes. And fix the fucking sidewalks!!!!

If you are thinking about it on paper, the bus running every half hour doesn't sound so bad, until you're waiting at the stop and you miss a bus or it's delayed. Then you're waiting a very, very long time. To people who never take transit, that's probably fine. Why do you care. To people who only take transit, they're expecting it, it's baked in their lives. But the important part, what really impacts our cities, is what happens to people for whom transit is an option.

The spiral goes like this. You go to take the bus instead of driving, thinking "I'm going to o have a couple drinks" or "I don't want to worry about parking where I'm going." So you take bus. First bus is right on time. But then you transfer from your neighborhood line to the line that takes you where you actually want to go. And your bus is delayed. And it only comes every 30 minutes. And then you're waiting, 40 minutes later, wondering where your bus is, knowing you could have driven there in 20 minutes.

Why would you ever chose to take a bus again? The bus made you waste precious time on your day off just sitting there. So next time you drive. Ridership goes down. When the transit authority asks for more money for more buses and more drivers, people point to the ridership numbers and say "why should we pay for this instead of paying for our schools/police/baseball stadium/parks/police again (let's be real that's who's taking all the money)?" If we want to increase ridership we need to actually design and fund functional transit networks. If we want people to actually ride the bus we need to make it a better option than driving, which means reliable service, which you don't get with a bus every 30 minutes.

Every 15 minutes, everywhere, all of the time.

[letmeoutofthebasementt]

can I ask your honest advices on something personal? so I get next to no communication from a now former friend, I had some hunch to ask a reader if said friend dislikes me and the answer came back as yes so I recently googled if ignoring someone or not reaching out to them via texts can count as them being jealous or having some dislike? yet they still send the bday present and xmas card or present as do I but I feel like its a cheap way when I know she practically lives online but I barely here from her so I dont really know what to do? we havent met in years and she makes next to no effort to seem interested in what im doing even if I try to take interest in herself as a friend it feels very one sided even when we used to meet up it would always be about her and never any follow up questions.

I know she has a disablity of some kind however the effort she puts into her other friends is vastly different. if she messages me its once in a blue moon and only to ask if I want to do a quiz, now I stopped checking my online profiles so much because like it seemed she was much more into what she got from others i dont want to feel desperate by constantly trying to fix whatever this "friendship" was supposed to be. do i ask her or do i wonder about it? if she dont tell me how am i gonna know what to do about it because many ppl been like her even when I was in school I was always dealing with ppl who pretended to care when they didnt. I didnt know any better then so it feels like ppl r just only using me if they need me for that certain point otherwise they fuck off and find "better friends" elsewhere like am i that replaceable or weird?

is this petty of me to want to ignore her back or is it mostly her behaviours towards me? the thing is I have dealt with many ppl like her and it doesnt put her in a good light it gives trying to be nice to my face but for all I know she could be chatting shit with someone about me? and shes quite popular online. hence why it feels like im always bottom of her priorities since always having to instigate a conversation felt like conversing with a brick aka it was going nowhere. I know her disability cant prevent her from being a decent person but do I just leave her? yet this whole present giving thing really isnt it for me. its giving oh I will just send her something to make it seem like she cares when she dont message or try to get in touch nor does she want to meet up. all her messages in recent years have been so short almost too blunt

does this sound like jealousy or regular dislike? sorry for rambling again but im so effing tired of these types of ppl who act like they care to have a friendship but then half ass their way out of it, it doesnt help that we moved since long ago so we cant be closer physically as friends. But I feel like my existance bothers her for some unknown reasons. as I told the tarot reader im nothing special heck im not the popular one she is if anything I would guess she was quite popular that she simply didnt need me? You would think if we was real friends she would make a bit more effort cause sometimes theres things I wanna tell her but am like wait she dont care so im not gonna bother cause she want certain replies and comments yaknow?

thanks so so much in advance if you read all of this!!! I love your blog and readings so felt comfortable to ask you for your thoughts hope you dont mind the rant there!

Honestly that’s an awful situation to be in. In my opinion, it’s not necessarily jealousy. She just doesn’t like you, point blank period.

Now, I can admit I’m the type who’s on my phone a lot but can sometimes miss people’s messages, and I’m not good with reaching out first. But that’s not a good behavior. And at least if she liked you she’d be interested when you’re talking, which is something I do. And she’d be there for you. And at least she could come around to responding eventually instead of flat out ignoring you and only contacting you when she needs you.

It seems like to me she’s keeping you around so she can have more people clinging to her and chasing her to fuel her ego. It’s more an ego thing than a genuine like. She does not like you. I’d bet she doesn’t even necessarily tolerate you. But she likes your attention.

She likes the experience of being worshipped and chased. Knowing she doesn’t have to try and you will just chase and follow her to the ends of the earth.